Toothbrushes for children, adolescents and adults with braces are generally scarce. A special toothbrush must be used for cleaning braces and teeth, since unlike unadorned teeth with flush generally flat faces with rounded edges, braces have a bracket or band which protrudes from the flat surface of a tooth. Square or rectangular shaped braces attached to the front or back surfaces of a tooth are called brackets. Round shaped braces fitting around a tooth, usually in the posterior section of the oral cavity, are called bands. An orthodontic archwire is placed into the brackets and bands and held in by ligature ties or connectors. Since an archwire spans from tooth to tooth, food and debris accumulate interproximally, below the orthodontic bands, brackets and archwires, where food debris and bacteria tend to harbor. These are areas which are difficult to reach with a conventional toothbrush.
Relevant prior art includes U.S. Pat. No. 4,033,008 of Warren, which shows a bristle head with a taller distal set of bristles. U.S. Pat. No. 4,382,309 of Collis, U.S. Pat No. 4,706,322 of Nicholas, U.S. Pat. No. 5,325,560 of Pavone and U.S. Pat. No. 3,678,528 of Haije all show toothbrushes where outer bristles are higher than inside bristles. U.S. Pat. No. 5,628,082 of Moscovich shows a toothbrush with stepped rows of higher and lower bristles. But, these are discrete clumps, not tapered pairs as in the present invention.
Another relevant patent is U.S. Pat. No. 1,018,927 by Sarrazin which has the tallest bristles being rounded bunched bristle tufts. These bristles do not merge to a point. However, having bristles merge to a point is necessary to clean several areas for patients in orthodontic treatment, in order to clean bacterial debris in the distal regions of the most posterior teeth in the mouth, along with point contact above (incisal or occlusal) and below (gingival) to the archwire of braces of a patient in orthodontic treatment. It is impossible to clean the bacterial debris in these areas with the rounded bunched bristle tufts portrayed in FIG. 4 of Sarrazin '927 patent since the rounded tufts of bristles cannot fit between the close proximity of the orthodontics brackets on the teeth.
Also in Sarrazin '927, the outer bunched bristles in FIG. 2 therein are one unitary set of bristles coming to a peaked point. Furthermore, lines 64-66 therein state that the tufts should be spaced to get between the teeth.
Therefore, Sarrazin '927 does not have pairs of outer tufts created by the convergence of two separable and distinct tufts, as proposed in the present orthodontic toothbrush of the invention, which creates a tapered point by an oblique angulation of each tip of each pair of tufts in opposite directions. In contrast to Sarrazin '927, the bristles of the orthodontic toothbrush of the present invention sweep to remove debris on a mesial or distal surface of a tooth, and they can penetrate a greater distance interproximally between the teeth.
Furthermore, groove "c", as shown in FIG. 1 of Sarrazin '927 and described in lines 86-91 therein, was fabricated to help placement of the brush by the patient on the tables (occlusal portion) of certain posterior teeth. In contrast, the shorter bristles in the center of the orthodontic toothbrush present invention are so that a patient's braces and teeth can be reached and cleaned simultaneously, on the facial surface (the surface one can see when a patient is smiling) or lingual surface (the tongue side). Unlike the brush of Sarrazin '927, the orthodontic toothbrush of the present invention help cleans either the facial or lingual surface, dependent upon where the braces are placed-on the inside or outside surfaces of the teeth.
In addition, lines 48-59 and 101-104 of Sarrazin '927 state that Sarrazin's toothbrush requires less bristle rows in the front of the brush than in the rear of it, in a transversely extending direction throughout the toothbrush. In contrast, in the orthodontic toothbrush, of the present invention, there are the same number of rows transversally throughout the toothbrush. This is necessary since braces are placed in the front (anterior) and rear (posterior) sections of the mouth, in the majority of orthodontic cases.
Moreover, U.S. Pat. No. 5,472,972 of Bredall is similar to toothbrush of the aforementioned Warren '008 patent in which all the bristles are flat and do not come to a point, as do the separable pairs of tufts of bristles of the present invention.
Neither Sarrazin '927 nor Bredall '972, either singularly or in combination describe or suggest an orthodontic toothbrush with one large peaked tuft of bristles, and with a gently curving inner surface sloping up from shortest bristles, to medial sized bristles, to taller bristles, wherein the bristles are arranged in adjacent pairs of tufts, wherein further each tuft has oblique distal surfaces that form a split peak when adjacent to each other.
Moreover, the crevice gaps between each tuft of the pairs of tufts of the orthodontic toothbrush of the present invention enable the peaked pairs of tufts to split apart from each other and diverge at the peak, a feature impossible to be accomplished with unitary tufts of Sarrazin '927 or Bredall '972.
Furthermore, the prior art patents do not assert that they are or can be utilized for teeth undergoing orthodontic construction.
To clean orthodontic braces and the teeth to which they are attached, requires a special configuration of pairs of tufts at varying heights, wherein two adjacent pairs of tufts together form a peak separable by a gap between each tuft of each pair of tufts, to maximize both reach and divergence of the cleaning surfaces of the tooth brush upon the respective braces and underlying teeth.
Non-patented prior art includes a ORAL B orthodontic toothbrush of Oral B Laboratories of Belmont, Calif. which is similar to the Collis'309, Nicholas'322, Pavone'560 and Haije'528 patents. The COLGATE TOTAL toothbrush of Colgate-Palmolive Co. of Canton, Mass. is like the brush of Moskovich'082 patents which has stepped rows of higher and lower bristles. But these also are discrete clumps, not tapered pairs with a rippled zigzag configuration as in the present invention.
Tapered pairs with a rippled zigzag configuration are shown in the CREST COMPLETE toothbrush of Proctor and Gamble Co. of Cincinnati, Ohio.
However, none of the prior art toothbrushes provide a toothbrush, which acts to effectively clean the teeth and orthodontic braces of a child, adolescent or adult under orthodontic treatment.